Recently I spent two days teaching Gaelic songs to some children at the Celtic Department of Kelly MacArthur's School of Dance in Westmount, Cape Breton. Most of the students were dancers and they were excited to be dancing to singing instead of to a musical instrument. A complete connection was made between language, music and dance with the children learning all of them.

That was a great pleasure for me and I started thinking about how things have changed since I began learning Galiec in the nineties.

At that time not many of the musicians had an interest in Gaelic or would even admit that Gaelic had any use of place in their music, even though it would be called "Celtic Music." And anyone who would say it did would often be mocked by someone who was completely against it.

But today there are places where the language, the music and the dance are being taught together as is proper. Places like the Gaelic College where there is a new team at its head and they want to have Gaelic as a premier subject as they follow closely the traditions of our ancestors. I've no doubt the influence of Gaelic will be heard in the music of the students who learn at the College.

The Highland Village and Féis an Eilein are on the same page also. Language, music and dance have been interwoven and intertwined successfully here for years. The benefit of activities like this can be seen in the number of fiddlers, dancers and singers, and especially the Gaelic speakers who come out of this area every year, with how successful all the events held here are, and how famous Féis an Eilein has become.

I hope that with improvements like these an awareness of the virtue of Gaelic in the music and dance will grow strong far and wide.

I'm not at all against people who don't speak Gaelic or don't have any interest in Gaelic playing "Celtic music." There is certainly a place for that music. But it must also be acknowledged that there are degrees of difference in it, that it is not fully representative of the traditions of our ancestors, and that a significant place must exist for the music in which the power if the Gaelic language is heard.